GReddy Turbo kit for BRZ / FR-S
 

We have been getting calls and emails regrading our GReddy Turbo kit vs Speed by Design Turbo kit so we would like to clarify this once and for all.

First of all, GReddy Performance Products, Inc and our parent company Trust co. Ltd in Japan has no business relationship with Speed by Design or their turbo kit supplier Zage Turbo in Taiwan. In the post made by Speed by Design promoting their kit for the FR-S, people are confused on who manufactures our kit and why ZAGE/SBD kit are so similar in design with our kit. The kit Zage and SBD are selling is a direct copy of our product except for the airfilter and BOV. ZAGE pretty much took our kit and copied everything down to manifold, intercooler layout even to cast piping, brackets and heat shields. If you look at our kit and compare them to kit from Zage/SBD, you will see that they are identical.

We use genuine GReddy Turbo custom made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Turbocharger in Japan to our spec, we invest many hours testing for the ideal turbo spec, manifold design, intercooler and piping layout. Also invested in all the tooling and molds for all the components included in our kit. While testing these kit we have also designed other necessary components such as the oil cooler kit which is a must for this application. Knockoff companies are not capable of this.

Companies such as Zage without any R&D to develop their own products, simply takes other companies products and mass produce them in China and Taiwan where it is much cheaper to produce and offer these products back in to the market profiting off other companies hard work.

If you look at other forced induction kits in the market for FR-S/BRZ you will see many different layout and setups made by each designers, fabricators and tuners. GReddy Kit is our original kit designed and developed by our own R&D team and manufactured by Trust Co. Ltd. in Japan. and if there are identical products our there it is not a coincidence.

We have visited Zage in Taiwan and confronted them about the kit they are producing and all they could do was make up excuses and was desperately trying to earn our business so they can make the claim they supply to us as well. We were not going to let that happen. Instead we teamed up with Garrett this year to add another high quality products to our product line up. We are in the process of developing new kits as we speak. No China or Taiwan knock off turbochargers will be used in our GReddy kits!

So to answer many question we get from this FT86Club community and other FR-S and BRZ clubs, GReddy Turbo kit for the FR-S/BRZ is not from the same supplier as Speed by Design and what Zage and its distributors are selling is a complete knockoff product of GReddy. (expect for the air filter, BOV and other minor features).

We hope Ft86Club and its members respect our efforts and hard work to deliver quality products to this community and let us tell the truth regards these knockoff products such as what is being sold by Zage and its distributors.

We recommend everyone in this forum that before you spend your hard earned money, do the research and make sure you fully are aware of what you are buying and what kind of companies you are supporting.

This industry is full of knockoffs and many companies has been effected over the years. These knock off companies and the distributors who has supported them are preventing legit companies from creating innovative products and leaving the industry. While general public prefers more affordable products, we understand that, but there will be no creative and innovative company left even for these knockoff companies to copy. If you can't afford quality products, you can't afford it but we will continue to do our best to offer quality products at affordable price.

We always welcome feedback from consumers and will continue to work with you to do our best to meet your needs.

Speed by Design kit
http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/...BDturbokit.jpg

Genuine GReddy Kit
http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/...y86_BRZ_TK.jpg

Thank you,

GReddy Staff

@AVOturboworld

How about that debt?

Greddy still sending you $10 a year?

Focus on paying back your debt first.

You ain't no saint either

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...1&postcount=27

@spdbydesignchris


*cough *cough .... looks like you got some splaining to do...

I am saddened, to say the least, by the malicious attempt to degrade Zage and SBD, as their USA Distributor.

We have been open since Day 1 about the origin of our kit, and our relationship with Zage.

While the public has no idea who Zage is, they are one of the largest, if not the largest, turbo parts suppliers in Asia. Yes, a company easily as large, if not larger, than Greddy/Trust Corporation.

They product turbo kits, turbo parts, and accessories for numerous companies both domestically and internationally.

I am disappointed to read your demeaning comments about their company, as you are well aware they have no opportunity to defend themselves on this forum.

We will continue to speak the truth, which these are indeed two separate kits, configured differently.

Our goal from the beginning was to bring Zage' offering stateside, as a value in the FT86 market. We worked with them to add the MAP Sensor, BOV to their base kit....to make it an even better value once it reached out shores.

We also spent extensive time developing our Ecutek custom tuning, which we provide FREE of charge to our customers.

And in the next week, we will add the Free Open Flash Tablet Tune to our supported platforms list, to further extend our value based kit to those who have invested in Vishnu Tuning.

While I understand your need to degrade our offering, for the future advancement of yours, I'm sad to see a company of your size publicly attacking ours.

We will continue to sell on our own merits, which is our excellent service and value based kit pricing.

I would encourage you to focus on your strengths, to further progress your kit in this ever-growing marketplace of turbo kit offerings.

My Best,

Chris Riggs
President, Speed By Design USA

In before lock

While I appreciate your moral compass, you have no idea about Zage, or SBD.

I would encourage you to get to know our two companies extremely well, before you make a judgement call with very little knowledge outside of the words of a competitor that you are choosing to regurgitate as fact.

Zage is not a counterfeiter, and is one of the premier turbo parts suppliers in Asia.

This upcoming week I will post photos from my trip to Taiwan to show their facilities, which I think will further prove our claim.

You claimed they manufacture for Greddy as well hence that's why they are basically same, until you were told otherwise. Why make such claims if you had no clue?

Ok, how do you explain this
and this
or this
You are implying that you did the designs, which is obviously not true.

As one of the Distributors of the Zage Kits internationally, I have no basis by which to make assertions about the origin of the kit.

As I've publicly stated, we are the USA Distributor for the ZAGE Turbo Kit.

Anything regarding it's origin, ties (or not) to Greddy, etc....must be answered by Zage themselves.

I/SBD did NOT design this kit, and the only 100% positive Guarantee I can give you....it's made by Zage and ships from their facilities in Taiwan to our warehouse in the USA.

If you speak the language, you are welcome to call them and discuss this further.

But it NOT my place to make claims, for which I have zero personal knowledge.

Speculation isn't fact, so it's best for me to state what I know:

Zage makes the kit we are offering here, and we will continue to distribute it in North America until further notified by Zage.

Should that change, I'll be the first to post publicly.

You can see even more "likeness" between the picture that zage keeps on their website...

http://www.zageturbo.com/upload/car_...1128112959.jpg

Remember when we all went to school to learn proper grammar and spelling? Let's have a civil conversation and before throwing sludge at the other study up on some facts.

Who cares, if it's cheaper and pretty much the same, I'll go with the cheaper one

Even the SBD oil cooler looks like the GReddy lol. I love the evasion around the original accusation. Im not sure why that's still happening... The jig is up.. . GReddy is here calling you out

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

clearly the zage kit is a ripoff/copy/duplicate, but it is not a counterfeit (they are not using greddy markings).

greddy is right in the sense that this type of copying hurts the companies that actually innovate and design the original kits, but it is not illegal for them to do so. so...the bruden is on the innovators to protect their designs.

my advice to greddy is implement a diligent intellectual property protection strategy which includes applying for design patents as standard operating procedure for all key components. the brackets, headers, heat shields, and unique shaped tubing would all be easily protectable and enforceable.

here at group-a we apply for and are issued about 7-10 design and utility patents a year. clearly in recent years copying in this industry has become increasingly widespread and flagrant, and we've had to take a much more aggressive approach to enforcing IP violators in the marketplace. in the past 18 months we've had to take legal action against 4 patent violators, and atleast 6 trademark infringers (ie counterfeit manufacturers and resellers)and counting.

innovators in our industry need to start understanding that the best defense in this industry is a good offense.

Why does this forum even allow this type of business activity to go on, on this forum?

Oh, thats right, because they pay.

I called this out when this SBD first surfaced, and was quickly told to be quiet, and that this is the same kit. Dispite be knowing for a fact this zage company wasn't supplying greddy, they were copying. I'm glad Greddy have finally said something.

Wow.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/09/10/j...es-bankruptcy/

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GReddy"]GReddy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

F*** GReedy

Honestly in this situation SBD is not the culprit. It comes down to Zage in China and Greddy/Trust co. Ltd in Japan.

SBD is purely a distributor/vendor offering a competitive kit to the U.S. market. There is no malevolent (perhaps too strong a word) trickery going on from their end. I am sure SBD anticipated this scenario before distributing the kit to the U.S. market, which makes it seem more fishy that GReddy would have to take a stab at them publicly - like some desperate final stand to have people buy their kit because interest is f*****g them daaaaaily. However, it makes perfect sense that GReddy would say anything when you look at the massive amount of debt hole they are in - again, desperate much.

Pure speculation can lead to extreme and/or exaggerated conclusions ^^^ and it is unfair to point any fingers and make SBD the culprit. It would be nice to hear from each parent company on the matter, if that can even happen, perhaps a statement? Nonetheless, whether Zage's kit is a copy or it is not -at least they are not marking up the shit out of their kit price like GReedy is.

I liked my AFE knocked off GReddy Momentum intake. Even had AFE coupler in the box too. Was it a lesser product? Nope.

It's great that this is aired out. It's no secret who got my money nor that I am very happy with my purchase. In today's global economy, how much do you think is actually produced by the actual company and sold under their name?

I was in the PC industry years ago and from that experience I can confidently state that there is an abundant amount of rebranding worldwide. Meaning: same shit, same factory, different box.

That said, if someone stole my product and sold it for less, I'd kick their ass and sue them. If they were bigger than me, then I'd just sue.

They made bogus claims, did you just happen to ignore that?

:popcorn:

I bet they're marking it up MORE than Greddy. Chang labour is cheap as fuck.

I used to sell chang and JDM parts 10 years ago. Camber arms for s-chassis was a good example. Landed from Japan they cost be $130-$150, sell for $180 - $220.
Also used to offer a Chang option for cheaper buyers, for $120 - $130. But, they didnt cost be $50 or $60, it was more like $12.

Is that meant to be derogatory towards the Chinese?

I wouldnt say its derogatory. Chang is just slang for what Chinese parts are called in NZ.

I am not intentionally ignoring their claims, I just didn't get to read through all of their responses on their FI page. I suppose I could try to take some time to do that. What bogus claims did they make, in a shortened version?

When China starts making and selling copy Boeing 747's will you fly on them? No!

How were you able to make a conclusion without going through it?
Did you even go through this thread?
The answer to your question had already been listed here.

Speed by (someone else's) Design

It sure looks to me like SPD is ignorantly believing a line Zage fed them. Its not a stretch to look at the 2 kits and tell there was something shady going on. SPD claims there kit is different because it includes a BOV. Sure in another box there is a BOV, but it is in no way designed into the kit, you have to take it to a welder to have a hole punched in the piping and then the fitting welded on.

SPD you kept preaching about including a tune, drop the sales pitch and face the real issue here.

Even if SPD is only selling the kit and wasn't involved in the "development" they are still responsible. They put there name on the kit. There should be no separation between the actions of Zage and SPD. SPD when you put your name on a product, if you make it or not. You now need to be responsible for what is in that box, you need to answer for it.

SPD is selling a Zage WITH THERE NAME ON IT, THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE AS WELL.

Sure SPD/Zage can sell at a lower price, knockoffs with no R&D have much larger margins.

Ultimately its down to the customers to stop this poor business behavior. If you stop buying fakes they will stop making them. And companies like SPD will fail. However to many people now just shop by price, with complete disregard over who actually did the leg work on the design or what is in the box.

The admins/mods on this site plays a part as well.
It isn't the first time they let stuff like this slide.

Very true, not promoting it would go a long way towards people not buying it.

Make it your signature. Lols will ensue.

And by lols, I mean bans.

aFE contracted with Greddy USA to make that product for them and badge it as Greddy, it's a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SITUATION. Meaning aFE was still getting paid for the intakes.

In this situation, ZAGE just copied the design because that's what they do, and then SPD resells the same copied design. It's very similar to ROTA wheels, they copy the design of popular wheels and sell them for cheaper.

This stuff happens all the time in lots of different industries, car parts are no different. If everyone was in the US, it wouldn't happen. Greddy could license their design for ZAGE to build, but Greddy would still be getting paid from it. In this case they get nothing for their R&D work.

The reality is SPD insinuated Greddy was sourcing their parts/kit from ZAGE in a different thread, and it is a completely untrue. Instead of just owning up to it, Chris has chosen to defend ZAGE and SPD by just ignoring that and spouting off something about ZAGE being a big turbo parts manufacturer. Yeah they manufacture stuff they copied from people who do real design work.

SPD pays the site, Greddy doesn't, so I'm guessing this will get closed and Greddy will get banned which is the norm for this site. People have asked me about the SPD kit and I always steer them elsewhere.

I would really hope this doesn't get deleted. Regardless of vendor status or whatever its still good information for consumers and the community.

Wow~ there's blow below the belt.

I'm sorry, maybe I miss or misread something here. Making sure I'm reading this correctly, are you blaming admin & mods for this too?

Cuz this is outside of forum business. Forum can ban (& have banned) vendors who have/had horrible customer service &/or screwing members of sending late or etc.

If you wanna say "But they're selling knockoff parts & you're allowing that?" Then I'll rely w "If you know it's knockoff parts & go against your moral, don't buy it." Simple as that.

Looks, if you wanna go technical, post by GReddy is technically advertising of their product & they need to become vendor before posting this... but is this thread lock/deleted? I can tell you, if it did later on, it wasn't from me. I don't like the idea company copy other company's design/idea. As a member, I fully support GReddy.... but that doesn't mean I can use my mod power to banning company.

so until SBD or other brands screwing members by not shipping their products, or horrible customer service... Admin & mods can't step into it.

Did I make it clear? Or is this still sound BS to you?

It's the Kate Cool Oil Cooler, not SBD, just wanted to clarify.

Made in Taiwan.

We simply purchase and import, for use with our turbo kits.

Completely separate business than Zage, zero relationship.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GT-86-14-ROW...d74b99&vxp=mtr

Guys,

I want to very clearly insure these kits are not made in China.

Zage is a Taiwanese company, and there is a HUGE difference in quality of materials and workmanship in the products produced.

Calling Zage a Chinese Company, would be like calling SBD an Italian company....because it's owners have the same complexion of skin.

They are two totally separate countries, and should not be used interchangeably.

Just recently have formal talks between the two countries begun:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...a45_story.html

For those that curious about the manufacturing prowess of the two countries, this is a good article:

http://www.sourcingoverseas.com/taiwan_vs_china/

Until you've physically spent time in both countries, invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in each....can you come here and argue what I'm telling you based on personal experience.

We moved out of China last year completely, for our other platforms, and I won't be stepping foot back in for many years to come.

Taiwan, on the other hand, is state of the art and it's factories and quality are extremely good, for the most part.

It does not matter where it is made a knockoff is a knockoff